#troubled fate

“It was,” said Nacadi as they stepped into the central chamber. It was just as she remembered, and she shuddered as her eyes traced the details of the familiar stalactites, the dark pool of Shade and the single watery beam of moonlight that filtered in from a gap in the tons of rock overhead.

On the far side of the chamber hunched a guardian, her wings dripping black and her golden scales swirled with Shade black. Her eyes were grey and dull as she lifted her head and spoke in the voice of the Shade. “You have come,” she rattled. 

“To banish you once and for all,” snarled Astrophel. Nacadi moved in front of him, protecting him as he began the spell. Runes flickered to life, drifting in the air around the imperial as he wove his neck and tail in a rhythmic pattern and chanted softly.

The guardian bared her oily teeth and hissed, spreading her wings as she loomed up over Nacadi. Nacadi snarled and leapt forwards, the katana flashing in the moonlight as it drove deep into the guardian’s shoulder. The Shade screamed, staggering backwards, and whispered,

“This one has many tricks. She studied in Light and in Arcane, and we have all the knowledge she possesses.” A great roar shook the earth, like thunder and earthquakes and rocks being broken by ice. Korst, thought Nacadi as she advanced on the possessed guardian.

Chuckling, the guardian began her own spell, moving to the other side of the pool as she chanted.

“Astrophel,” said Nacadi nervously, “What’s going on?”

Astrophel broke off his spell with a gasp, and the glowing runes blinked out as deep purple runes appeared, blazing on the rocks around the guardian. “Nothing good,” he said. “I’ve heard of this spell, but...”

“What does it do?” snarled Nacadi.

“It erases us. All of us. The last line of defense against the Shade.”

“Then do something!”

The cave rocked with the force of a massive explosion, rocks raining from the ceiling as the sky briefly flared with golden light. Someone overhead screamed out, “Radiance!” 

“I can- I can try,” said Astrophel. He spread his talons and began to chant feverishly fast, his eyes flaring deep amber as the chanting grew deeper. The guardian snarled as her runes started to wink out, leaving the cave in darkness.

Astrophel stopped chanting and staggered, falling to his side in the dust, and the guardian screamed and crumpled as the last of her runes burned brightly before crumbling. “What happened?” she asked.

“I... I changed the spell,” rasped Astrophel. “Now... instead of erasing us... it erases the Shade creatures.” 

“That’s good, good work,” said Nacadi comfortingly, rubbing the imperial’s side as he gasped for breath. He shook his head frantically.

“It’s... it’s going to- going- scatter us now. Across time. Across space. Couldn’t...reverse the whole thing.” And as he spoke, there was a great silvery light that sparked from the center of the cave and washed across the valley like a tidal wave.

And in the wake of the silver wave, the Shade dissolved into flecks of darkness, swept away on the wind, and the dragons of the valley shone bright as stars as their memories crumbled like dust, and their histories were rewritten.

“True enough,” agreed Sepehr. He turned his blind face to Korst and added, “Traitors and backstabbers we might be, but never let it be said that the Beast Paladins backed down from war.” Reluctantly, Nyrasis nodded.

“They are coming!” roared Royeaux, swooping over the fields, and flowers burst up where her shadow swept across the grass.

Korst reared onto her hind legs, gilded wings flaring across the sky. “Do you stand with me?” she roared, and roars of assent surged up around her, even from cunning Astrophel and arrogant Tybal. “To me, paladins!” bellowed Korst, and Radiance was at her left, dripping burning light from her mouth and eyes, and Aslesa was on her right.

“To me, children of the desert winds!” called Aslesa as she spun her rapier in a practiced claw. Tybal loomed up behind her, his mouth spread into a fanged and bloodthirsty smile, and beside him was their sister Shirai, whose shadow seemed to shift into a roc, a stag, a scorpion as she moved.

Royeaux landed heavily in the dirt, and a few mouse skeletons burst from the ground around her feet. Her breath rasped from exhaustion, and Madoc leaned against her, his antennae twitching and eyes closed. “It will be all right,” he whispered.

“It will not be so,” said Royeaux. “But I am glad you are here with me at the end.”

As the Shade leapt across the river, black smoke swirling behind them, the Beast Paladins ran forwards, and the rest of the dragons of the Gamagrass Clan surged forwards likewise. But Astrophel slipped around the battlefield, heading for the ruined temple that boiled with darkness. As he snuck from rock to rock, neck hunched and wings folded, he muttered to himself the spells of binding, of banishment.

There was a thump behind him, and he jumped, magic already sparking to the tips of his talons. 

“You’re going to the temple,” said Nacadi. Her legs and wings glimmered with stars, and her eyes held tiny galaxies. “I was going the same way.”

Astrophel glanced over his shoulder at the valley below. The dragons of the clan were being pressed back, and as he watched he saw Madhu the beekeeper fall beneath the talons of an inky black imperial, and Iseult fall, bleeding onto the grass.

Korst’s eyes widened. “Summon the clan, tell them to meet just outside the caves,” she growled at Radiance, who nodded and flitted away, leaving a trail of golden sparks in her wake. Turning to Madoc, she added, “You did well to find me immediately.”

Jorell and Bronwyn spread their wings, and roots and thorns surged up in a great wall in front of the creeping, glistening forms of the Shade dragons. Above them, Royeaux twisted through the sky, and bones broke out of the ground below her, fashioning themselves into long-fanged creatures woven with nightshade and dripping with mud and algae.

The bone creatures surged forwards, leaping over the wall and attacking the first of the Shade dragons, which screamed in a voice like broken glass and crumpled under their venomous claws and snapping jaws. Jorell whooped as he swooped along the wall, and Royeaux smiled shyly.

And as she draped her arms around the creature’s head, it leaned its great head into her, and the discoloration of her wings and scales turned black as pitch.

More creatures of the Shade rose from the pool as the first took over Lucent’s mind, cracking the last defenses that protected the center of her mind and rushing into her brain. We must ascend, whispered the cluster, and Lucent reluctantly repeated, “We must ascend.”

We must form an army. Attack the meddlesome paladins in the valley below.

“Form an army. Attack the paladins.” Somewhere deep in her mind, Lucent whispered, but what about studying the Shade? what about mapping out the rest of the underground temple?

“Indeed he does,” rumbled a voice behind them, like rocks sliding together, and Nyrasis and Iseult whirled, talons out, as Korst appeared in the tunnel, her gilded horns glittering in the light. Astrophel hissed and pressed himself back against the rocky cave wall.

Tybal and Aslesa filled the tunnel in front of them, golden and brown eyes shining fiercely. “Looks like we found our traitor,” growled Tybal, scraping his claws along the rock.

“Gently, Tybal,” warned his sister with a ruffle of her shining feathers. She turned her attention to Astrophel, tilting her head. “We knew about the activities of the shapeshifters, stealing from other clans and assassinating their leaders, but... I never thought it would be you who was giving them their instructions.”

Astrophel protested, “It’s- it’s not like that! We need the money, it’s expensive to outfit an army, and you make so many enemies- you aren’t the most tactful-”

A flick of Korst’s tail silenced him, and the ridgeback drew herself to her full height, eyes gleaming red in the dim and flickering light. “Enough,” she boomed. “You could have left the clan, many times over, if you disagreed with me. But instead, you went behind my back, made us more enemies than I ever have.” A long, forked tongue darted between her teeth.

“The three of you I give two days to leave the valley,” she growled. “Astrophel will remain under close supervision until such time as we can arrange him a trial. Tybal, escort him to his quarters.”

Tybal moved forwards and shouldered the smaller imperial roughly, forcing him down the hallway, and the shapeshifters scattered. Aslesa’s head drooped, and she sighed. Sympathetic, Korst draped a wing over the slender skydancer.

Aslesa settled down on the bank of the stream, her antennae trailing in the water, and waited quietly. Eventually, Royeaux sniffled and sat up, brushing away the flowers that had begun to grow in the cracks of her muddy scales. “I don’t deserve this,” she said quietly. “You should have kicked me back to the Wyrmwound.”

“We wouldn’t do that,” said Aslesa with a smile. She hesitated. “Unless you wanted to go back to Plague?” 

“Oh, no,” replied Royeaux quickly. “But all of you are so kind, and so brave, and I’m nothing like you.” Her wings drooped, and where they touched the mud reeds began to spring up and wind themselves through her red feathers.

“Being kind is a choice,” said Aslesa. She stood, flicking mud from her talons, and turned away, sunlight casting a glowing halo on her mane. “Bravery is trickier, but it gets easier when you have faith.” 

She noticed that Madoc had a limp shape draped across his back, all tousled orange leaves and burr-tangled hair. A dryad, an unconscious one. Gently, Madoc eased the dryad off his back and set her in the grass, and Shirai arched her neck to sniff at the limp form. “Do you know what’s wrong with her?” she asked.

“I think she’s just in shock,” said Madoc. It was the longest sentence Shirai had heard him say to anyone besides Royeaux, and she released the floating seal and scooped up the dryad. She stirred weakly, and as Shirai’s pixies brushed their tiny fingers against her, her skin began to regain a healthier green tint. 

Madoc sighed, settling into the grass. He stared up at the sky, at the wisps of cloud being swiftly swept southwards, and his wing trembled and strained. “It was Royeaux,” he said quietly. “She was practicing magic in the forest.”

“And there was an accident?” Shirai unfastened a waterskin from the belts slung around her chest and dripped a little over the dryad’s mouth and face. Her eyes, outlined in red powder and shining a deep autumn gold, fluttered open, and she smiled weakly.

“Something like that.”

Shirai shook her head as the dryad jumped to her feet, flitting away with a trail of autumn leaves swirling in her wake. “Second time this month,” she said quietly. “There must be something we can do...”

“As long as we’re helping out, it’s not important. Korst never told you not to-”

“Korst doesn’t approve of subterfuge of this sort,” said Astrophel sharply. His spectacles slid a little down his muzzle and he pushed them back, ears twitching nervously. “Some of the others might, but the paladins take only brute force and battlefield confrontation as fair fighting. Even when our supplies of healing potions are low and our coffers are nearly empty from outfitting an army.”

Iseult frowned, ember-bright eyes shrewd. “We could find her an army,” she said. “There are always warriors for hire in the Plague lands.”

“What army?” rumbled Korst’s deep voice from the mouth of the cave, and Iseult wheeled on her hind legs, bursting back into the shape of a dragon. The matriarch nearly filled the mouth of the cave, with the silk-draped paladin Aslesa beneath one wing and tiny, firefly-bright Radiance nestled between her handsomely gilded horns.

Astrophel’s face was a mask, and he picked up a book to inspect the glue of the binding. “We don’t have the money to hire mercenaries, no matter what you and your shapeshifters might want,” he said, a coldness in his voice that had not been there before.

Aslesa stepped forwards. “The messengers are saying that the Lord of the Library was poisoned,” she said, anxiety written in her birdlike face. “Could you write a letter of condolences?”

“Of course,” said Astrophel. “I think the unicorns are ready for their dust to be harvested again, we could send the spare bottles as well. Perhaps some flowers...” he mused, setting down the book. He idlely stirred a pot of ink, staring down into the blackness.

“You seem troubled of late, Astrophel,” Korst rumbled. Her voice boomed like distant thunder.